DoJ doctors Holder speech; Obama appoints fox as chicken inspector

It’s good it’s August, or I would not believe that the Administration could get this silly.

First item. Dan Froomkin unearthed the archived version of a Holder speech in which he boasts about the prosecution of people committing fraud against homeowners. Quoting from Atrios, the original:

This landmark Initiative, spearheaded by the FBI, was launched to help streamline and advance investigations and prosecutions against fraudsters who allegedly targeted, and preyed upon, Americans struggling to keep their homes. And it’s been a model of success. Over the past 12 months, it has enabled the Justice Department and its partners to file 285 federal criminal indictments and informations against 530 defendants for allegedly victimizing more than 73,000 American homeowners – and inflicting losses in excess of $1 billion.

This landmark Initiative, spearheaded by the FBI, was launched to help streamline and advance investigations and prosecutions against fraudsters who allegedly targeted, and preyed upon, Americans struggling to keep their homes. And it’s been a model of success. Over the past 12 months, it has enabled the Justice Department and its partners to file federal criminal charges against 107 defendants for allegedly victimizing more than 17,185 American homeowners – and inflicting losses in excess of $95 million.

On Friday, President Obama promised to appoint an “independent group” of “outside experts” to review the government’s surveillance programs.

Today, the president formally ordered the formation of this group
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The panel will be chosen by, and report to, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper [who lied under oath to Congress].
…
And there are other signs that the group won’t turn out quite the way the president described it on Friday. Friday’s speech talked about the need for input from outside experts with independent points of view. The president made no mention of the need for outsiders or independent viewpoints in his memo to Clapper.

The stated mission of the group has also shifted. On Friday, Obama said the group would examine “how we can maintain the trust of the people, how we can make sure that there absolutely is no abuse.” But today’s memo makes no mention of preventing abuses. Instead, it will examine whether U.S. surveillance activity “optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while appropriately accounting for other policy considerations, such as the risk of unauthorized disclosure and our need to maintain the public trust.”

Update: In a Tuesday email, the White House says that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper will not, in fact, choose the members of the Review Group. “The panel members are being selected by the White House, in consultation with the Intelligence Community,” writes National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden. “The panel will not report to the DNI.”

Stormcrowsaid

Even if the Obama administration doesn’t give a damn about transparency, civil liberties and truthfulness in and of themselves, the president’s recently plummeting approval ratings may be worthy of official attention.

Evidence of poor thinking on the part of the author.

0 cares even less about approval ratings than he does about the job he swore to do on the day of his first inauguration.

He will never have to even run in, much less win, another election. What good do approval ratings do him now?

His key objective, post 2’nd inauguration, is to emulate Bill Clinton by parlaying his 8 years in office into as tall a stack of dollar bills as possible. If he does this even halfway right, he’ll never have to work another day in his life.

He’s a rich man already, and he will be able to earn plenty every year even if he were to do it honestly… a book, say, or a few dozen speeches at $10,000 a pop…or take an academic position. Any university would be thrilled to have him as their president.

Vanity is the only check on second term presidents. Perhaps that’s why second terms are so disappointing.